Weatherman

The stuff that was recorded poorly (RTB, VT) was corrected live, so those are probably the most rewarding live recordings. Otherwise, studio > live, mostly because they were such perfectionists in the studio. Notice that they almost never reworked any of their studio arrangements. They saw themselves primarily as a compositional band, I would imagine.

P/G live concert, the Fear Trilogy Thank you, YouTube.

If anyone cares, I wrote this breakdown on a different thread, in my very first post here: 1) Finding Their Way/Beginnings (debut to COS) 2) High Prog (you know the albums) 3) AOR Success (PW to Signals) 4) High Synth (GUP to HYF) 5) Refinding Their Balls (Presto to TFE) [Peart break] 6) Heavy Old Man Rock (last three) "Refinding their balls" refers to lack of synths and especially Alex's ripping tone throughout Counterparts. Hard to pick favorites, but I rarely listen to 1 and 6, if that says anything.

I agree on these pronunciations. "A great mind thinks alike!" But seriously, one can't help but feel sorry for those learning English from a non-native starting point. The British Isles was a place where all of its inhabitants, and their neighboring lands, met to create one heck of an amalgamation: Old Norse, Latin, Brittonic, Old French . . . the list goes on and on. English is a bunch of languages standing on each other's shoulders wearing a trenchcoat.

English is weird. Apricot. Tomato. Aunt. Peart. Nobody agrees on these pronunciations.

His voice was best from HYF thru the R30 tour.

This is actually something I wonder all the time and would love to ask. Once they come up with a synth patch for a sound they like, how do they go about archiving it and recreating it later? Like you said, I would expect for the old analog synths they would write down all the patch settings somewhere and keep it in a vault (later digital stuff could exported to floppy/computers). But I wonder in reality if they take it that far. Maybe just knowing what synth made the sound, they just shoot for 'close enough' later if needed. Seems hard to believe though, especially since some of the digital stuff (like PPG Wave programs) can be so tough to make again from scratch. I'm obviously a big nerd about getting the historical record down for synthy stuff, I'd love to know more details on this process. Maybe we should start a petition to get a synth chapter in his memoir? ;) PS - One thing this reminds me of is when I was emailing the guy who played the synths on the Twin Peaks TV show soundtrack. I was surprised that he didn't still have the original Emulator II file for the guitar sample he used to make that great bass guitar sound in the intro (he only had it in a newer format, with the pitch shift and tremolo already applied). I get that he probably never uses his Emulator II anymore. But I would still think once you made a hit with something like that, you would immediately back it up in multiple places and keep it safe forever. I know that guy Jon Carin found himself becoming a synth archivist for the members of Pink Floyd and The Who. He stores all their old sounds and performs on stage with the groups. It's actually a genius way to continue getting work at that level. "Hire me for the next tour, or you'll never hear the beginning of Baba O Riley again."

Lerxst memoir: We were in the studio for a long time in the seventies. Like, most of the seventies. We smoked hashish and made cool guitar songs. Then we spent even more time in the studio in the eighties but I didn't like that as much because there wasn't any more hashish and because Ged didn't want to make any more cool guitar songs. But we made some songs and I could kind of play my guitar in the background so that was still okay. We went back to making more cool guitar songs later. Blah blah blah. Do I really have to write this?

Interesting because I've always enjoyed the electronic section of Peart's solos more than the acoustic section. So have many other people whom I've shown his YouTube video to. They grow bored when the kit rotates and he starts rolling on the traditional snare.

Free speech exists precisely to protect the voices of the people who we disagree with the most. Even if their opinions are odious. That's when free speech is most necessary.

I once read a review for a Kiss show that was canceled last minute, but the review of the show that never happened was published anyway. Oops. I used to work in journalism at a very famous newspaper, and the obituary guy showed me the obituaries of famous people that he'd already prewritten and had ready to go. He didn't like it when someone famous died unexpectedly because he'd have to work overtime that day.

I once asked my politics professor about Ayn Rand. The words were barely out of my mouth when he dismissed the question with a hand wave. "She's not treated seriously by anybody in the field," he said. I already felt that way about her, having read Atlas Shrugged. Anyways. Neil probably went thru his Rand phase the same way that lots of other young smart white guys (like most of us here were) do. You come out the other side and realize it's a cartoonish stance on human society. BTW there is a lot of conjecture that Rand was on the autistic spectrum, best explained by the fact that she really, really, really couldn't feel empathy for anybody.

With an iron fist in a velvet glove We are sheltered under the gun In the glory game on the power train Thy kingdom's will be done. These are NOT literal lyrics. These lyrics, like so many of Neil's, do not offer easy comprehension. People who are very literal, or impatient, or uneducated, will get frustrated by them. (They may still like the music, but if they're looking for a reason to dismiss a band like Rush, this presents a good one.)

Great comment. A little piece of me dies every time an accomplished, sophisticated band full of good, inventive musicians says, "Oh, we're getting back to basics on the next record, just four guys in a room jamming on three chords." UGH. Looking at YOU, Bono. lol

Isn't one of the well known funny little tidbits about Neil that despite being really good friends with Stewart Copeland (The Police), Copeland has gone on record saying that he's not a fan of Neil's playing? For real? He probably objected to Neil's belabored compositional style. They're very different players. In the Police, when Copeland was presented with a new song by Sting or Summers, he wrote and recorded the drum part within two or three hours. It just came to him quickly, and he never got in the way of his own creativity.

Why can't people just listen to their catalog with two different sets of ears? It's like being angry at lasagna because it's not hamburger. You can enjoy both. lol

Yeah, it takes something special to HATE an artist or group. For me, it's Kid Rock. I want to hurt him with my hands.

I kinda doubt anybody hates Rush because they’re uneducated and don’t understand Neil’s lyrics. I feel like the only people who hate Neil’s lyrics are those who do understand them and think they’re preachy or have bad influences or are clunky or something like that. I have no clue what the words to Sigur Rós’ music mean, but I still enjoy the music. I've known two people who didn't understand anything about 2112 or Ayn Rand and disliked them for that reason. Primarily it's the early stuff. "Time Stand Still/I'm not looking back/but I want to look around me now" is pretty universal.

Don't forget that a lot of uneducated people were intimidated by Neil's lyrics. They couldn't understand what the words meant.

Those people didn't pay attention to his singing after 1980, I guess. He began to sing with chest voice and his sense of melody greatly improved.

I saw them in Maryland on that same tour, and it was exactly my experience. Bad, bad sound. I kinda liked Candlebox at that time, though, so seeing them was cool. Speaking of 90s rock, I saw Gin Blossoms play recently. Their music hasn't really aged well.

Godwin's law, kind of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

Live, I'd say that The Allman Brothers were equal to Rush, though obviously played in a different genre (Southern rock with tinges of jazz) and were improvisers in a way that Rush never could be. But if you narrow the field to non-improvising rock bands + or - 15 years, their only competition would be U2. That's mostly because Bono can really, really sing his ass off when he wants to, even today at age 60. But Rush wins because they were always musically more impressive than the Irish boys (love them though I do). And don't mention the Stones. They can't even begin to compete. Sometimes I wonder what would've happened to Zeppelin if Bonzo had lived, if they'd gotten off the junk and the sauce, if Jimmy Page disciplined his fingers live, if they'd tightened their live shows. Imagine them as older men -- all four -- simmering together as a real unit with another decade or two. IMO that's the only band that could've hypothetically ripped Rush apart on stage. But that never happened.

Looking at this list, it's clear that they had a real talent for picking out the most exciting song and putting it first on the album. At least 10 of them were setlist regulars throughout their entire career. Good ears!

R30 really was the best. They were at their absolute peak as a live band. Classic groups often write their best material early on but perform it better when they're older.